Fate Is Cruel, Isn't It?
by PageofHeart
Summary: How would you feel if the one you love hates you? Yui can only feel the icy rain, the warm blood around her and numbness from Hinata's words. An Angel Beats! three-shot.
1. Chapter 1

There he was, standing in front of her, a look of pure loathing on his face. There was Hinata, the boy she had come to love over her time in the Afterlife Battlefront.

It was just after the baseball game with Angel and her team, Hinata had called Yui over while the rest walked back to Anti-Angel Headquarters. Yui's shirt was wet with perspiration from the said game and her face was pink with the exhaustion. She remembered that moment when she wrestled Hinata, just as he was about to catch the ball. She couldn't help it; she didn't want him to disappear so…she did it.

"I hate you. You simply annoy me, just by being." The words cut right through the girl; she was struck dumb by the iciness of Hinata's words, her eyes growing wider as the impact of the words resounded in her head.

"You think you can just barge in, just when a member of the initial Afterlife Battlefront disappears, and attempt to replace her? Don't you know how many people were sad about Iwasawa?" Hinata continued. Yui gasped. That was never an intention of hers. She had admired and respected Iwasawa like an idol, her 'cool beauty' disappearing had caused her many tears, especially when she was among those standing in the mosh pit for what she thought was going to be another heart-pounding concert.

"She was so shaken up by it…" Hinata whispered, suddenly looking towards the ground, downcast.

The moment of sudden weakness and the weight of the sudden silence allowed Yui to recover and clear her mind. She started trembling, her vision blurring and a thousand thoughts bouncing around in her mind. What was this feeling?

_I never wanted to come off like that…I just wanted everyone to start smiling again…Hinata… _The name echoed and a tear silently slipped out from her pink eyes.

"Do you know how much I wanted to catch that pitch?" Hinata muttered.

Yui saw something dancing in his eyes, a longing to go back and change that moment when the pink-haired girl had wrestled him to the ground.

"I didn't want you to disappear…nobody did" she mustered the words in her head.

Hinata's head snapped back up. "Shut up. I don't want to hear your voice. Just…leave me alone from now on."

Yui bit her bit. It wasn't the playful "shut up" she had gotten used to. And how could she possible leave him alone? She loved him, for crying out loud.

"HINATA!" A troubled Otonashi came running. Sensing the atmosphere, he stiffened, and then coughed once.

"Yuri started raging at Angel for the match and then the Vice got angry and..." he took a deep breath, "they're fighting now."

Hinata nodded and proceeded to follow Otonashi to the fight.

Yui stared at the fading back of the boy she had loved for so long. Her lip was bleeding from the earlier biting she had subjected it to.

Finally, like Yuri's newly wiped sniper scope, everything in Yui's head became clear. She broke down.

"Don't you remember, Hinata?" she choked between her sobs "Back when we were living?"

* * *

"Stop it! Why are you fighting us?" a girl with pink hair shouted over the noise and bustling of bullets firing.

There, in the range of fire were Noda, Shiina and Takamatsu, firing at none other than fellow comrades, with a blank look in their eyes.

"Yurippe, I'm here!" Hinata shouted over the gunfire.

"What about Yui?"

"Forget about her, I'm here to help!" he snapped, firing a few shots at Angel and the Vice.

"How troublesome." the Vice sneered, an eerie red in his eyes "Don't you know how to accept defeat?"

Suddenly, Shiina drew her knives, poised to attack, aimed at the leader of the Battlefront.

"NO-!" a larger figure dove and shielded Yuri's body with his own. Hinata squeezed his eyes shut, preparing for the blades against his skin…

It never came.

An audible thud has heard was a mass of vivid pink hair spilled onto the ground.

The raging battle was silenced and everyone turned to look at the fallen pinkette. There was multiple piercings along her side, chest and neck, when blood was starting to flow from.

"I guess...we're done here." The Vice took a step back, the red from his eyes fading, and then he walked away, leaving Angel. Shiina, Takamatsu and Noda dropped to the ground.

"Quick, we have to help them!" Yuri screamed.

Yui heard approaching footsteps as her vision got foggy. There was so much blood around her; it made her feel so dizzy.

"I-It's okay," Yui mustered up the strength to speak as she saw a hand extended to her, "I'm not going to make it this time…I'll…just rest up in the infirmary."

She saw a blurred face nod and then move away.

Finally, all Yui could hear was the fading footsteps and the rain that was starting to fall.

"You're such a fool, trying to take that blow. You'll never be a real Afterlife Battlefront member. You're just an extra, barging into our afterlives like that. From now on, leave me and Yuri alone."

The words struck Yui with such force; the wounds on her petite body didn't even matter anymore. She could feel the footsteps of the boy that she had risked her safety for, and how they left her so mercilessly in the cold of the rain.

Yui lay there, in the cold of the dark, as she simply waited to die. She felt neither the pain nor the cold, she just hugged herself, her eyes and mind equally dull and blank.

_H-He loves Yuri..._

As a pair of brown eyes stared down at her, Yui's own fading pink eyes started to close…

"Isn't it painful to have the one you would fight for...be the one to hold the gun against your heart?"

Yui felt herself being lifted up and carried away…

Then nothing.


	2. Chapter 2

There was a loud crashing sound and Yui strained to turn her head to the right. There, amongst broken glass, was a baseball. Thankfully, she wasn't hurt in any way.

"Aw, (censored)!"

Yui giggled as she heard voices approaching the building she was in. Sure enough, the doorbell rang, and her mother hastened past Yui's room to see who it was.

"Ah…I'm so sorry, but I think I might have just busted your window..."

Yui heard the shuffling of feet around the house, and guessed that the two were looking to find the room with the broken window.

Finally, a boy with blue hair around her age entered her room, staring at the window. He started chucking nervously at the pink haired girl on the bed.

"Hey, I'm Hinata, sorry about that window," he laughed sheepishly, "sometimes the ball goes out of control…"

"My name is Yui and don't worry about it," she smiled.

The boy named Hinata grinned back, then took a broom from Yui's mother, and went to sweep up the broken glass.

"Just so you know, I would help you, so don't go thinking that I'm a spoiled princess on this bed or anything," Yui spoke up, cheeks flaming, she had never seen a boy so close. She gave herself a mental knock on the head, _I'm acting just like a tsundere, _she groaned internally_._

Hinata laughed again but then he glanced over at Yui, eyes curious. "Why would you say that?"

"Ah, Hinata, I'll tell you what," Yui's mother said,"if you agree to visit Yui once in a while, I'll forget about you paying for the window!" she finished, clapping her hands together.

* * *

From then on, Hinata would always stop by to visit Yui every Friday, after baseball practice. They had gotten to know each other well, and took a liking to each other, soon becoming the best of friends.

"Hinata, see that?" Yui nodded towards the televisions set, where two men were pulling each other into strong arm locks. "When I get better, I'm gonna try that on you!"

Hinata chuckled and ruffled her ink hair. "One day, Yui, but then, I'll counter it and make you shout 'Give!'."

* * *

"Hinata, your hair is dyed," Yui stated one day.

"Look who's talking, Miss Pink," Hinata protested.

Yui had no answer, replying by only pouting and muttering under her breath.

And so, the days passed by peacefully in that manner.

* * *

Then, one day, Hinata came around, but with a scowl replacing his usual carefree smile.

That was the day of the baseball game that changed everything.

"Hinata…?' Yui approached carefully.

Hinata sighed, and then looked up to smile at Yui.

"Yeah?" he responded.

But Yui would always notice a little sadness lurking in his blue eyes.

The days followed in monotonous routine. Hinata's visits didn't bring as much life as it used to. Something was wrong. Hinata had such tired-looking eyes, taking away the playfulness that used to ance in them. His skin was pale and he looked listless.

Yui was worried.

"Yui…I have horrible news," her mother approached, "I don't know how to say this but…Hinata is-"

Yui didn't need to hear any more, she was too numb. She could only make out the haunting sounds of "drugs" and "accident"

* * *

That evening, Yui's mother helped her off her bed and helped her put on a simple white dress. Shuttng the door behind her, she wheeled Yui to Hinata's funeral.

Life was agony from then on; Hinata appeared in Yui's dreams, haunting her thoughts and driving the girl into mental corners. She could feel herself breaking from the inside out.

The days were grey and meaningless; her mother could only color it so much. Even the violet flowers that Hinata would bring quickly wilted, cold and irreversibly dead.

Yui seemed to have lost her vibrancy, the pink in her hair and eyes were dull and lifeless.

Then one night, Yui's mother kissed her forehead and wished her a good night's sleep, as was their nightly ritual.

"Goodnight, Darling. Sweet dreams,"

Finally, Yui closed her eyes, snuggling her stuffed toy pig.

Her eyes never opened again.


End file.
